How Can I Improve Portal Search Results for Web Maps?

Question

Hi everyone,

I’m managing several web maps and applications in ArcGIS Enterprise Portal, and users sometimes have difficulty finding the correct item through search.

Is there a recommended way to improve search results and make important maps easier to find? For example, should I focus more on item titles, tags, categories, descriptions, or group organization?

I’d be interested to know what methods have worked well for others when managing a growing amount of Portal content.

Laura · Answer

Agreed with what was said above. Tags seem particularly useful for helping people find the right content.

You could also set up categories, as shown here: Find and work with content — Portal for ArcGIS | Documentation for ArcGIS Enterprise

For a particularly large Enterprise deployment, ArcGIS Enterprise Sites is also worth considering. It lets you build purpose-specific websites/pages that showcase relevant maps, apps, and data instead of making users start with the generic Portal search experience.

For example, you could have a Parks page where users click into it and see all the relevant parks maps, apps, and data. That feels a lot more user-friendly to me than relying entirely on Portal search. (this is where I send my users personally)

JonM32 · Answer

@rosalie_david_1998

This happens to me all the time! It's difficult to find items if they're created and no metadata is done. Below are components that I've found helpful in improving search results:

* A meaningful title: Make it obvious what it is. Use similar names if items are related. * For example - New GIS App and New GIS Map. Its nice to have apps and maps that are used together appear next to each other in the contents list by name

* Tags: Obvious terms that describe the item. Whatever words that come to mind you would want to type in the search bar without thinking too much.* For example - road, roads, street, streets

* Status: Marking stuff authoriative helps sort out other clutter in Portal. Plus, its nice to turn on delete prevention
* All of the other metadata items too…but the above are the key ones that help me find items quickly.